


Addendum 1003-7: Excerpt from Personal Journal Kept by SCP-1003-1

by thephilosophersapprentice



Series: File:SCP-1003 [6]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga, SCP Foundation
Genre: Alternate Universe - SCP Foundation, Diary/Journal, Gen, Justified Anger, Minor Injuries, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Sad, if you're not familiar with SCP-191 it's kind of a nina situation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:20:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23530729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thephilosophersapprentice/pseuds/thephilosophersapprentice
Summary: On the bright side, it does serve to remind me: I am NOT a monster. How could I compare to someone who does THAT to a little girl?
Relationships: Edward Elric & SCP-191
Series: File:SCP-1003 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683049
Comments: 10
Kudos: 81





	Addendum 1003-7: Excerpt from Personal Journal Kept by SCP-1003-1

I don’t think love is just the minute interactions of chemicals playing across neurons or meeting someone emotionally and sexually compatible. Maybe that’s how it works on the physical level, but there has to be more to it—something impossible to observe in a laboratory alone.

Sociology isn’t my field. I don’t think sociology could explain it, either.

I guess I’m privileged in this respect: I had fifteen years as a normal human child/adolescent before everything went wrong, even though I only had a mother for five of them. At least I think that’s how it goes. They haven’t been able to locate my or Al’s birth certificates, no matter how hard they try. “Bonuses” of growing up in Middle of Nowhere, Amestris—computer systems are all out of date and hard copies get messed up, illegible.

Another thing I can’t explain is compassion. Sure, I feel empathy when I see something sad. People who don’t are called “sociopaths.” But there are also people out there who see things and then… do nothing, no matter how much empathy they feel. People who I won’t name, because it wouldn’t do any good. Not here, and maybe not ever.

Can we extend the definition of “sociopath” to them, too, **please**?

I’m wandering again. It happens more often now. I guess anyone would, on finding out that everything they knew about reality was a lie and the world is so much… larger and more inexplicable. Sometimes it feels like the whole world has gone mad and I’m the only one left sane, if not unchanged… sometimes I think I’m the insane one.

It’s not so bad here. Not as someone from outside would think. I still have Al. It’s just foster care again. That’s all I have to tell myself. Just foster care, except neither of us is going to ever age out.

I met a little girl ([SCP-191](http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-191)) the other day. Her head researcher was concerned… concerned about her emotional and mental well-being. I’m not sure what he thought I could do to help, but he definitely thought something. I don’t even know what good I managed to do.

Had to go through a chemical bath and some kind of decontamination shower thing to be allowed in. Clean room protocols, so she was probably immunocompromised, and seeing what I saw I’m not surprised. They’d already wired her up to a tablet so we could communicate by the time they brought me in. Something tells me I would’ve found the process at least slightly disturbing, and maybe more than slightly. But then… she’s a little girl with wires under her skin.

Who **does** that to a little girl?!

She couldn’t have been more than ten. I’m bad with faces and ages, but I could tell that much. Most of her face… had been either plated over or replaced with metal. Her hands were shaky, like mine after a bad day, and there were… weals or welts that opened on her skin, revealing the metal and carbon underneath.

That son of a bitch, whoever he was. That bastard. That steaming pile of semi-depleted uranium mixed with toxic algal bloom. I wish I could write exactly what I would do to him if I found him.

But this journal isn’t really private. It’s for my psychologist. I’d rather not get labeled as homicidal, thank you very much. I only get that way when I hear about bastards like that. (While I’m at it, I may as well apologize for that dent in the wall of our containment unit. Sorry. Wish you guys would give me a better place for that anger to **go**. Bet that’s another thing about containment you guys never really thought of—not just keeping us from going self-destructive but giving us a place to vent our anger at the real monsters too.)

I wasn’t wearing gloves, so she saw my right arm. She touched it, gentle as she could. We didn’t speak for a long while.

They told me beforehand. Don’t show any outrage at her condition or you’ll scare her. I thought I was going to break down then and there but somehow I didn’t.

Finally her head researcher gave us the go-ahead. I smiled (even though I didn’t feel like it), told her my skip number and my real name. Figured she might be interested in seeing that my leg was automail too, so I rolled my pant leg up. She was curious about them—my prosthetics. ‘No USB ports?’ she asked. Was disappointed when I told her no. Tried to explain that they work on minimal programming, can’t even be accessed from outside. I think maybe she thought we could communicate better if she could just plug in directly. (It would majorly suck if people could hack other people’s prosthetics through the WiFi.)

I got the go-ahead from her researcher, offered her a hug. She didn’t even know what a hug was, but I think she liked it. She filled the whole tablet screen with exclamation points, then requested ‘again?’ So I hugged her again. I’m not good with words. It’s easier to express what I think and feel through actions. I'm selective about who I hug, though. And I guess no one had really thought of trying this kind of communication with her before. I guess it’s against Foundation procedure, getting close with the skips. There’s a reason why the rule’s there, but still…

We’re just kids.

Foundation needs to get more child behavior specialists on staff, people who can provide both a safe environment and hugs.

Eventually she’d filled up on hugs, so that was good. I asked permission to use my ‘gifts.’ Got the go-ahead so long as I was under control. Of course they had security people with tranqs, just in case. I really understand that they need to be protected from us as much as we have to be protected from the people who do these things to us. I really do. I’m not upset they’re there, I just kind of hate myself that it’s necessary.

I didn’t even understand fully what I was doing until the room was full of tiny floating lights. Like fireflies, but not really. Kept them a little distance from the other people just to be safe, but somehow I was bouncing a couple photons out of the atoms in the air. I don’t know how I did it. Maybe it just needs a specific mindset. I managed to do it again for Al later, but haven’t been able to reproduce the effect in testing.

She started breathing a little faster. The researchers were concerned until they realized that it was delight, not fear.

Eventually I had to go. She did ask to see me again, though. I’m going to go try to make her life a little happier whenever I can. Who knows. Maybe next time we’ll break out the coloring books and I can show her how terrible I am at art.

I’m okay. I’m okay.

Maybe if I keep telling myself that, eventually it might be true.

On the bright side, it does serve to remind me: I am **NOT** a monster. How could **I** compare to someone who does that to a little girl?

Maybe that’s what love is. Seeing someone and realizing you can help, and then just helping. Any way you can.

That’s it. That’s all. You should know that writing it down didn’t really help and I’m going to go destroy and then fix a couple pillows about fifty times now.

**Author's Note:**

> I am so sorry. For everything.
> 
> If it makes it better, I'm not a heartless monster. I cried writing this.


End file.
